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Message: <blockquote data-quote="two" data-source="post: 2345117" data-attributes="member: 9002">I’m in a good mood; an article of mine was published in the latest KODT. The party packs up and prepares for a night scouting expedition.  The “lighted” bolt is picked up; torches are passed around; flint is struck; flames appear.  Everyone is going along, more-or-less as a group, searching for defensible positions – or at least, a position more defensible than an open clearing.  As the party moves into the forest, the bright light of the torches outlines the slender limbs of the trees, casting swaying shadows behind the trunks as the party progresses.About twenty feet into the forest, Huln’s nose discerns an odor; distant, yet eminently rat-like.  He growls, and at the same time a barking noise is heard – a chittering, loud, stacco sound, about 100 feet away to the North East.  It’s clearly one of the ratmen shouting; and a shout is heard in response, from the South West.  After that, relative silence.  Well, except for the occasional sounds of ratmen moving, which somebody in your party hears every round or two, at the very limit of their hearing.  The ratman, or you soon think ratMEN, are keeping pace with the party – a party that is not moving very quickly through the forest with horses and their adventuring gear.As for a defensive location being nearby, a roll of “9,” modified by Vargo’s excellent outdoorsy skills, does indicate that there is a defensible position somewhere in the vicinity – perhaps.  The ground is rising slightly; it seems possible that there is a hill of some size approaching perhaps 500 feet away.  Possibly.  Too far away to tell.The trouble is, as the party makes its way forward through the forest, into an area of relatively thinner trees (marking the start of the rising towards the hill), two shots ring out.  Rather, two twanging shots are heard – I think only gunpowder causes  shots to “ring’.  The WereRats, easily keeping out of visual range, and not finding it very difficult to keep ahead of the party’s probable more-or-less straight-line destination, have set up an ambush of sorts.  Almayce (and the Wolf) sees the two shadowy ratmen peer around trees roughly 70 feet ahead of the party, crossbows at the ready.  Before anyone can do much of anything, the shots are fired.Everyone in the party has cover, due to the narrow trees between the ratmen and the party; however these trees also make charging in a straight line impossible.The Ratmen are none too finicky.  They pick the target who they think is most open at the moment, given the vagaries of cover.  A d8 suffices to determine this.1:  Ogrin2:  Rasereit    3:  Vargo4:  Wolf 5: Hallidor6:  Juliana7:  Zaeryl8:  Almayce    The Wolf and Juliana are attacked; the Wolf is missed completely and utterly, while Juliana is easily hit, being attacked by an invisible creature – doing “3” points of damage.Ratman2 is heard to mutter something -- it sounds like "One."  The other RatMan curses in return.  They seem to be in a sporting mood.The party may act in round 1 of this skirmish; both the Wolf and Almayce beat ratman2’s initiative, while ratman1 moves into the dark at the start of round1, having won the initiative battle. Let me know the general method for dealing with these sorts of skirmishes, which likely will be repeated many times barring an effective counter.</blockquote>

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